


I Like You

by midnightshon



Series: A Roommate for the Night [2]
Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-01 11:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16283393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightshon/pseuds/midnightshon
Summary: Bae Joohyun was a mess, and so was her brain.Then again, what she used to believe to be the truth might not be it at all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a ficlet with 500 words max, something I should write down as a memento. But whatever I wrote always turned into something entirely different and a lot more complicated than planned. Let's see if I could school my brain and stop it from giving birth to thousands different ideas for this short fic.

Upon the definition of love, she used to believe it consisted of herself and the brown-haired pianist combined together as ‘we’.

 

Then again, what she used to believe to be the truth might not be it at all.

 

She was in love. That was for sure. Yet as she stood there, just two step away from Son Seungwan, she was not so sure anymore. Not of her feeling for the girl, but of her bravery to convey it.

 

Her tongue froze. Her brain had malfunctioned as immediately as the pianist smiled upon her call. Whatever smart and effective sentences she had structured were crumbling in the face of the girl’s simple ‘hi’. Bae Joohyun was failing beautifully in the presence of Son Seungwan, just like always.

 

“You have something to tell me?” then came a question from the brown-haired girl, blinking her eyes curiously while still flashing that polite smile of hers.

_Yes_. For God’s sake, yes, she _had_ something to tell Seungwan. _A lot_ of things, actually. It’s bravery that she did not have.

 

What if she was freaked out because of the confession?

 

What if she did not see Joohyun that way?

 

What if she avoided Joohyun because of it?

 

What if Joohyun could never see her ever again?

 

“There you are!” The interruption came in the form of a very excited, eye-smile bear. Kang Seulgi. Seungwan’s best friend. The intruder smiled widely at Joohyun and congratulated her in a sing-song tone before looking back at her friend to inform, “We need you at the piano for the last song. Come.”

 

“Ah, right.” Seungwan nodded a little, and -- perhaps it was just Joohyun’s desperate brain playing trick on her but -- she saw hesitation in the pianist’s eyes as she looked at Joohyun again. “Catch you later?”

 

Joohyun nodded, feeling the lump in her throat grow bigger. She was so stupid. She should have just said it while she still had the chance.

 

“Congratulation again, Unnie,” chimed Seungwan, taking Joohyun’s hand to shake. “Happy graduation.” Then Seungwan let go of her hand and started inching away with her friend, too excited about the last song she was about to play to spare one last glance at Joohyun.

 

And soon Joohyun was left alone, faster than “Seungwan, I like you” managed to leave her mouth.

 

\--------


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who came back because she could not leave her characters’ fates hanging?

How she had been staring at that blank paper on screen for the past thirty minutes without actually producing anything was beyond her.

 

Bae Joohyun was a mess, and so was her brain, and it could not produce even one proper sentence to write down.

 

That, of course, could had been avoided had she not been stupid enough to gather her bravery and ask that one fateful question.

 

Nobody needed that, really, not even herself because for God’s sake, she already knew the answer even before the question was uttered. “Did you mean what you said then in the group chat?” she had asked nonetheless, ignoring her logical thinking and the possible embarrassment she would have to endure, and quickly shielded herself by adding, “Or just like everything else before it, was it just a joke?”

 

It did not take that long for the other person to reply, very pale in comparison to Joohyun’s endless internal debate before tapping on that send button.

 

“Which one?” a new chat message from Son Seungwan read.

 

Joohyun did not reply immediately. She felt stupid. That group chat thing happened only one month earlier, yet Seungwan could not recall. Or rather, it had happened over one month ago, and it made sense that people forgot when they could barely remember what they had for breakfast. Or in short, it was just Joohyun and her overthinking brain that could not forget and consider what Seungwan had said to be something but ordinary.

 

“The one when you asked me whether you’re my type or not,” Joohyun threw her last straw of dignity away. “But seeing you already forget about it, I guess it’s just a joke,” added her smartass brain aloud along with, “I’m just curious, really.”

 

“Oh, that,” replied Seungwan without missing a beat. “The kids borrowed my phone and typed that. They were pulling a prank on you.”

 

\--

 

Again, another half an hour had passed.

 

And she was still there, hands readily on keyboard, eyes plastered on the blinking cursor without stopping, too tired to look away, too tired to even blink and or to wipe the tears away.

_She doesn’t like you_ , her brain tried to register the fact for the hundredth times.

 

Seungwan did not like her.

 

Joohyun was not sure, it was probably because she forgot to open the window earlier, but she felt suffocated. No matter how much air she inhaled, it still felt like only carbon dioxide that got into her lungs. That pain in her left chest would not go away.

 

Son Seungwan, who she had always had her eyes on for years, whose presence she would notice no matter how crowded a place was, who she thought had treated her differently than her other friends, who she had adored from afar... that girl, she did not see Joohyun the way Joohyun did her.

 

She had never.

 

That simple.

 

There were no more maybes in that statement somewhere. This was a fact, not some residual of her anxious mind that had always been scared that Seungwan _maybe_ did not like her back.

 

And just like that, the crush she had kept to herself for four years died, leaving the world that never knew it existed.

 

\--------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be the ending. Or you all can treat it as the prequel of the first part, thus leaving this story open-ended, and not in a depressed tone as this second part did,  
> Or you can treat it as the second part still, and expect me to write one more part. With a happy ending (hopefully).


	3. Chapter 3

Despite the musical genius praise which had been permanently tattooed on her forehead for the past four years, in that exact moment, she felt like she was the dumbest person on earth.

 

Being a pianist from a very young age, Son Seungwan had been taught to let her hands do the talking. To let herself lose in the dance she did not know her fingers ever learned. And to let the melodies produce themselves.

 

Or as a realist would describe it, “Seungwan has hands that think before her brain does,” which then could be simplified to, “Son Seungwan is a brainless pianist. She is stupid.”

 

And it was proven right all over again as she stared at what she just typed down on her phone.

 

“The kids borrowed my phone and typed that. They were pulling a prank on you.”

 

That was not what she meant to say. No, that – but, really, it was not her who wrote that message back then. _Because you’re also a coward who chose to play along with your friends’ joke instead of to admit it_ , her brain added in a dry tone.

 

Seungwan told it to shut up.

 

Yet she did not fight back when her brain told her to find a wall, preferably the nearest one, and to slam her head against it. The brain was never wrong; Seungwan was indeed a coward, and she should, the sooner the better, slam her head against a wall to get the stupidity inside demolished.

 

.

 

It did not take long for Seungwan to figure out that Bae Joohyun was moving out of the country. “She’s moving to the States. From what I heard, she’s continuing her study in this criminal justice major there. Something about her wanting to be a police detective,” was what Seulgi told her when Seungwan confronted her about it.

 

Seulgi might look lost sometimes, but most of the times she was the one reliable source to everything that happened in town Seungwan could always count on.

 

There were even the date and time for Joohyun’s flight which Seulgi provided. So there Seungwan was, breathing hard from running around the airport like a madwoman.

 

If there was one thing Seungwan was grateful about in her life, it would be the seemingly endless coverage of her father’s power in Seoul – probably across South Korea as well. One by one, the guarded doors at the airport were opened for her with a casual swing of her father’s bodyguard’s ID card in front of the securities.

 

Breathless like she never was in her life, Seungwan made it to the international flight area. And there she saw her, Bae Joohyun, making her way past the sliding door after having her boarding pass checked by a tall security.

 

And for a fleeting moment, Seungwan wondered where those trashy dramas on TV got its plot from, because unlike the main characters who kept on missing each other, there Seungwan was, running with all her might, Bae Joohyun only a few feet away from her reach.

 

This is not impossible.

 

She could stop Joohyun.

 

She could make Joohyun stay.

 

Or so she thought until a sturdy arm blocked her, almost successfully making Seungwan fall face-first on the floor if it wasn’t for her father’s bodyguard.

 

“Your boarding pass, please.” The security said in a stern voice.

 

“Please open the door,” the bodyguard said just as firmly, and showed his ID to the security.

 

The security nodded knowingly and bowed a little, his posture overpowered. “I apologize, Sir, but you need a boarding pass to get through the door.” And the tall guy showed what he was referring to, hand gesturing to a barcode detector behind him.

_Dammit...!_ Seungwan stomped her foot, not believing that a scene from those trashy dramas was happening right at that moment. To herself. She was losing Joohyun.

 

She vaguely heard the bodyguard yelling at the security to open the door with a spare key – no, no, that’s not happening. Joohyun was getting further away behind the glass door, Seungwan was not going to let the search of a God-knew-where-it-was-located spare key make her lose Joohyun forever.

 

So she ran again, along the big glass windows, not bothering how so not-a-Son-like she must look, only slowing down when she could spot Joohyun’s figure, just three steps away from her.

 

Three steps and one-thick-glass away from her.

 

“Bae Joohyun!”

 

She knocked on the window with her fist, not even a second worrying she might damage it. And it was very effective. Joohyun, Joohyun, Joohyun, bless her easily-surprised self, she jumped from her spot in reflex, eyes darting wildly, trying to locate the source of noise.

 

Her eyes blinked twice before they lost the surprise flashing across, replaced by two knowing look at Seungwan. And what’s that with that frown?

 

Joohyun looked confused... and hurt.

 

“What are you doing here?” Seungwan read her lips as the older girl came closer.

 

“I – where are you going?”

 

“What?” Joohyun brought one of her ears forward, closer to the glass window, and it made Seungwan shake her head. Did Joohyun seriously believe she could hear her words better by doing that?

 

Seungwan quickly fished out her phone and typed down her question. She tapped on the send button and waited, eyes on a very confused Joohyun.

 

It took Joohyun one full minute before she mimicked Seungwan’s gesture, taking out her phone and unlocking it. The signal must be really bad inside.

 

A series of different expressions decorated Joohyun’s face as she stared down at her phone screen. Seungwan waited patiently, all the while wondering what took Joohyun so long to reply her simple question, only to realize one second later just how advanced her stupidity was.

_Shit._

 

That message, she had sent it through the same messaging application she used to reply to Joohyun days ago. It was not Seungwan’s question that Joohyun was staring at.

 

It was Seungwan’s stupid answer that day, and Joohyun was frozen in place, all the hurt those words had caused came flooding her mind, rendering her speechless.

 

She tried calling out, but her phone ringtone stopped her. A reply from Joohyun.

 

“I don’t know how you could get here,” the short message read. Seungwan dared to look up and found the sender staring at her with a blank expression. This glass window might be playing a trick on her poor eyes, but Seungwan _swore_ she saw traces of tears on the girl’s cheeks.

 

“... but the joke is not funny anymore. Go back to your friends.”

 

“Go,” Joohyun mouthed with so much pain painted her expression. If she could break the glass window down with her two hands, she would, just so she could push Seungwan away herself.

 

And with that, she turned on her heels.

 

“Joo – no! Bae Joohyun! God dammit, stop!” Seungwan tried knocking on the window again, but Joohyun was not stopping.

 

She hastily unlocked her phone again and ran her hand across the screen, typing furiously, knowing perfectly well she would lose Joohyun any second wasted on a typo.

 

“I like you,” she typed, and hurriedly sent it.

 

The clock icon slowly changed to one check, her message was sent.

 

And two, it was received in Joohyun’s phone.

 

The two checks never turned blue.

 

Joohyun did not stop. She never looked back. And the message remained unread.

 

\--------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this will be the last time I left you guys hanging. Don’t kill me just yet. 
> 
> Head over to the second part of this series (From. Anonymous) for a continuation of this story. Because, yeah, something that lasts for four years cannot be a mere crush, and yes, Joohyun (and Seungwan, too) should fight for it.
> 
> Shoutout to rundaehyun who gave the inspiration and made it possible.


End file.
